Palm Springs, the new homophobic destination

The police chief there, by all reports, is a bit of a homophobic pig. (You’ll recall we wrote a while back about how he was entrapping gay men in sex stings – undercover cops would go to gay neighborhoods, grab their crotches, and ask guys to “Show me what you got.” If the guys did, the cops would arrest them on public indecency charges and label them sex offenders for life.) The local gays are mad as hell, but no one in power seems to be doing anything about it. We’ve written about this guy before. This time he’s accused of using a slur about gays (from the context, looks like “fags”) about gay arrestees.

The complaint claims Dominguez said “what a bunch of filthy (expletive)” about the men arrested and told the officers in the car “you guys should get paid extra for this.”

The claim by Petersen is the first accusation directed at Dominguez for his own conduct during the sting. The city is already investigating the use of an anti-gay slur by an officer who participated in the operation.

It also now appears the Police Chief may have lied:

It also contradicts previous statements by Dominguez, who has said he was only briefly present during one of the four nights of the sting and that he was not present when the officer, whose identity hasn’t been made public, made the slur.

It seems one of those pesky fags have now filed a complaint against the police Chief.

This is seriously bizarre, having a homophobic police chief of a major urban gay center. I can’t see how this doesn’t start to hurt local business. It’s only a matter of time before word gets out that Palm Springs isn’t safe for gay people.

John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Instagram | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the Executive Editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown; and has worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and as a stringer for the Economist. He is a frequent TV pundit, having appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline, AM Joy & Reliable Sources, among others. John lives in Washington, DC. John's article archive.

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